Lady Odile Nightgold
Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn?
Description: In the flicker of passing candlelight, Odile's rich locks are chased by a sheen of molten gold. It's the same color found in the night owl healer's sultry gaze. Mindful of the generous aspects of her figure in her mode of dress and movements, Odile is neither a strutting peacock nor a graceful little dove. She's a Mercy. And yes, that stain is probably blood.
Personality: Gentle with a cool wit, Lady Odile Nightgold's bedside manner is colored with an all too often under-appreciated dark humor. Still, the young woman's aura of unshakable self-confidence and contagious nonaggression cannot be matched for putting the infirmed at ease... and getting everybody else out of her way.
Background: Brought up alongside those of her cousins in the ducal line of succession, Odile never knew a girlhood home but the one beneath House Nightgold's famed rose-gold arches. Viewed from the mountaintops, it was the seasonal changing of Stonedeep's landscapes that woke her to Lagoma's vast, beauteous influence and what, like her mother before her, prompted her to find purpose as a Mercy.
The devastation caused by mining injuries alone meant she was often occupied, sometimes required to brave the darkest caverns and stalest pockets of air to do her work. It ought to have come as no surprise that her strength of conviction translated into a fortuitous match. She was betrothed to the heir of House Aviaron. Only, the prospect of being the next Marquessa-Consort didn't appeal to her at all. She was far from fond of her husband-to-be and she resented even more being (inevitably) reduced to marriage fodder.
While it was easy enough to play the role of apologist for the Northern beliefs of her family and friends, she couldn't stomach the idea of being wed to anyone who practiced them so openly. It might have been a different story if the Aviarons were at all willing to tone it down! In the eyes of her family, she proved ungrateful and even obstinate.
...that is not to say she was any less horrified at the news of the man's ultimate end and that of his kin. Those deaths and the subsequent carnage she experienced during the Silent War did more than simply reinforce for her the power and necessity of her role as a healer. They highlighted for Odile her responsibilities to her House, all of whom could have been lost to her just as easily. With her mourning period behind her and a great deal more in the way of perspective, Odile comes to Arx for promised and much needed change.
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